What Does the $2.8 Billion NCAA Settlement Ruling Mean?
College athletics dramatically changed Friday night when a federal judge approved a $2.8 billion antitrust settlement
What Does the $2.8 Billion NCAA Settlement Ruling Mean?
- Thread starter andrew jones
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The private money collectives, like what duke has, like what UNC may have or had been forming, is that now included in the 20.5mil cap? I think it would have to be because the way I read it the 3rd party deals that must pass thru the clearing house can not be pay for play.
Both what the useless NCAA is saying and what I have seen elsewhere, in order for a cap to be in place, jst as with all pro sports leagues, it has to be collectively bargained by a union of employees? Now I get that the NCAA and the judge are expecting congress to grant an exemption. Oh I just love when the federal government gets involved to "fix" something... WE are hoping the same body that can't figure out how to keep men out of women's sports and they are going to fix this so the law suits do not stack as high as the moon? LOL
Both what the useless NCAA is saying and what I have seen elsewhere, in order for a cap to be in place, jst as with all pro sports leagues, it has to be collectively bargained by a union of employees? Now I get that the NCAA and the judge are expecting congress to grant an exemption. Oh I just love when the federal government gets involved to "fix" something... WE are hoping the same body that can't figure out how to keep men out of women's sports and they are going to fix this so the law suits do not stack as high as the moon? LOL
The Big East can spend their 20.5 million dollars on Basketball due to not having Football. The Big East is the clear winner.
especially when they have no business even having an interest in what's going on, but overstep anyway just because somebody thinks that their job is to fix whatever people want but aren't getting. If they would just let private considerations work themselves out, we would have fewer problems. At least we wouldn't have the problems that those 'fixes' create.
College athletics shouldn't be run according to the dictates of some wrongheaded lawsuit settlement decided on by a mere handful of dimwits.
To begin with, the universities should be allowed to offer what they (individually OR collectively) want to offer, and the recruited athletes should be allowed to either freely accept or freely decline whatever offers there might be. But don't let it be that straightforward and reasonable. Stick that government nose in and screw it all up for everybody.
I am still trying to get a full understanding of collective money, but it could fall into the third-party category. I have read multiple piecces saying that 75% of those deals would have been denied by the clearinghouse. But I am not entirely sure and I don't think a lot of people who will operate within those walls fully understand yet, too.
If they have that much to spend per school. That league doesn't have media rights the ACC does so it's hard to see any Big East team having that much cash.
that's another part I didn't think to mention. Let's let yet another area of our interest be made far less enjoyable by exposing it to the commercial interests of major media and its advertisers. As if that hasn't happened enough already.
I'm a capitalist. I have no objection to commercialism in a general sense. But there should be some restraints put on commercial encroachment on the purity of sport, allowed and actually facilitated for the sake of sucking in obscene piles of money to use for obscenely idiotic purposes. Like paying a second or third-rate college QB more than a first rate one might make as a pro backup....etc., etc.
Let the colleges operate as a pro league free of governmental stupidity and collectively decide on a workable cap of some sort, with the athletes not having a single word to say in it other than 'I accept' or 'no thanks, I don't accept'. If they want to organize and bargain collectively, let them...it's a free country or it used to be. But allow the school collective to deal with that as they will, without moronic government intervention favoring the individual athlete under the ill-advised laws that takes power away from the employer and hands it to the employee.
In theory, at least, Big East schools could spend the entire $20.5 million salary cap on just basketball. Or, more realistically, spend $8-10 million when schools in the Big Ten and SEC are largely in the $2.5-$4 million range.
The Big East payout for this year will be $75 million in media rights revenue, which breaks down to approximately $6.8 million per school. Some schools focus mostly on just basketball but many push multiple sports hard. UConn just built a magnificent hockey arena and spends on that sport, plus it has Geno's women's BB program AND a football program it wants to fancy as a P4.
Creighton has a major baseball program. And so on.
I don't think the Big East is a major financial threat.
I’ve lost my interest with College sports. It’s over people. Ruined by a lack of leadership and greedy athletes. Time for Universities to invest in the students they are educating and forget the highly paid athletes. The Universities are there for the education of the youth. I’m done with the sports. Let the players go to a junior league and leave the colleges alone. As a long time Tar Heel it hurts to admit this but it is time to move on
Definitely doesn't have the same draw now for sure. At least pro sports have multi-year contracts, allowing fan-connection to a building team and association with rising star athletes.
great point. also, pro teams have a lottery to give lesser teams a chance to improve and be a contender. also, salary caps and other protections so it's not all about money. ironically, college sports is now more mercenary than pros.
it's a double-edged sword for me. I despise this bizarre money aspect we have at this time, but I am very happy to be rid of the silliness of pretending that our major sport athletes are amateurs. They are amateurs in the sense of experience, but they are and have been compensated for their athletic contribution,. Why I hate the pretense isn't so much the pretense itself but the ridiculous measures the NCAA had to take to prop up the facade.
Regarding contracts, in the banter I've heard, contracts have been mentioned. And why not contracts? Put an end to the questionable shopping around of the portal and make these guys commit so that the team-building that we all hope for can happen. Maybe even allow trades. Probably nix on that but it would be interesting.
Are the rules for a 3rd party deal public? To some extent they are just not as clear cut as many would li8ke to see. It is a bit like "just pass the bill and we will find out what is in it".
My read on this is that the key for the clearing house to allow a 3rd party deal is that it has to meet fair market value. That is broken down in to 2 aspects and neither can be in any way conditional to be pay to play for any particular program. Such that you can not over pay an athlete more than you would any other person, actor or not for the role. Couple examples, lets say a Memphis basketball player did a commercial spot for Fed-Ex, they could not pay the athletes more than they would pay for example Tom Hanks (his role in cast away had huge Fed-Ex mention). But the athletes reach as far as commercial appeal would have to equal that of Tom Hanks in order to pay that athlete the same money. Determined by social media reach, as well as other areas where the athlete would have ot meet the level of commercial ability of the star actor. Deloitte has been asked to put together just such a frame work for the 5 major conferences. Example 2, Bacot and the Jimmy's seafood deal, same thing but if Jimmys for example had been a long time contributor to UNC sports, the deal is not likely to pass muster with the clearing house. Such that if you would pay a regular actor $3,000 for the spot that is likely all Bacot could make.
Second is these 3rd party deal can in no way be with any involvement from any program, the school cannot arrange any of it or use it as a recruiting tool in any way. Example, let's say Duke's AD had a majopr influence in putting together the New Balance deal with Cooper Flagg, rumor is that AD did have involvement, the deal would not be allowed due to the involvement of the AD (just used as an example).
That is the global view but the step by step, a check list if any did exist, no, not public nor do I expect it to be. It is going to be extremely hard to police, it does seem to invite back the dark room cash deals that programs like duke and Ky are so experienced in as he NCAA seems to not be walking away from policing such things, they seem to be running away from it (as unfortunately for so long they have done for the last couple decades).
This is just my read on al of this from a LOT of things I have read.
I think you're on top of it as much as most right now, including me. The fair market value will be key, otherwise there's not point in having this process in place.
With baseball now over, there might be an opportunity to speak with Bubba about this to gain more clarity.
Yeah, the Big East as one of her conferences that do not do football simply do not have the wide donor bases of larger programs. Now they may have a wealthy donor or 2 very willing to cut checks for players but if that falls in to the 3rd party aspect it would have to go thru the clearing house and not likely to pass.
But what if those same donors gave the money to the school so that it is considered NIL and under the $20.5mil cap? They could do that sure but the major conferences have the benefit of huge media deals that help them handle that $20.5mil, the smaller conferences do not so they have to raise it all on their own. They to have other programs they have to support and not be able to have the mega media deals to assist or the largest money draw of football. Most expect it to be harder for the smaller conferences to survive than the major ones.
I should add, so far it appears it is left up to the conferences to determine how the $20.5mil is to be paid out. The ACC has left it up to the individual schools to determine how they want to allocate the $20.5mill. Other conferences may and can set the % for those pay outs for each sport. Big East for example has schools, not al would be able to compete if for example St John's was able to spend $18mil on men's basketball players, the conference would very likely self regulate and set the % to equalize that.
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Seeing how this eventually works out might be the most interesting development of the last five years (and certainly previous decades) because it finally gives us some form of regulation. Some pundits say this will even the playing field but the money schools are still going to be the money schools, and in some ways more so than before. It's going to be very hard for non-power programs to sway kids unless they are more out for playing time and opportunity than anything else. What an idea?
There is a chance this also forces the hand of some schools in the ACC. With unequal revenue sharing now in place and winners take the majority of their postseason earnings, how on earth will Wake and BC, for example, have any hope of hanging in the front porch sports? They'd have to win and get a ton of eye balls to approach Clemson/UNC/FSU money, and that is as likely as me winning a modeling contest.
Article says only deals of $600 or more have to be reported. Can I offer a player an endorsement deal for $500 per day for 240 days (8 months x 30 days)? That is $120,000. If 9 others in my private private alumni group do the same that is $1.2M that is not reported. It is so much easier to find loopholes hat to draft the initial rules. NCAA could not stop the under the table dealings for years, why should I expect their new clearinghouse to be any better?
I believe it could help greatly though if the schools were allowed to form a 'league' and set parameters for active participation/engagement that carried serious consequences for members acting outside those parameters. Kind of like the NCAA except really. No ticky tack BS meant to maintain the illusion of amateurism, but,heavy fines and serious loss of revenue measures and avenues for serious civil action if damages can be proven.
Texas Tech just got to the softball World Series on the back of their million dollar pitcher (literally paid a million from their collective to get her) she left Stanford in the portal for the cool million, in college softball. If the skill is valued, they will pay.
I think it will be very similar to the NFL/NBA etc., and the Super Conference/Power schools will break away. All others will be lower tier, not included.
With collectively bargained salary caps and floors adjusting yearly from the revenues similar to NFL/NBA. The 20.5 million or so, if I remember correctly, is the average of all of the power schools net revenues. It is a much smaller percentage of the profit for the Ohio State's and a much larger chunk for the lower earning Power schools, but works kinda like Oklahoma City (small market) and L.A. (big market) type teams who have very different bottom lines in the NBA, but are able to compete with the luxury tax and revenue sharing elements giving boundaries.
Luxury taxes with revenue sharing to keep in the caps. I assume being eligible to offer more to retain a player, than to bring one in from "the portal" will be arriving with the moving cap as well each year.
From what I have read the calculation that led to the $20.5mil number was based off (I think this is correct) 23% of the gross revenues generated by the schools sports programs to include Media rights, ticket sales, merchandising sales and "other contributions that would be considered pay for play". Those other contributions I think is the attempt to pull in to the cap any vestige of NIL that we now see, including private donor NIL groups, like for example the private collective duke alums have that is separate from the public collective. Not included last I saw was concessions but that may have changed as well.
3rd party commercial deals separate and above rev sharing will be allowed but all 3rd party deals over $600 would have to pass thru a clearing house committee to insure they are not in any way given as conditional that a kid play for a specific school or have any involvement by the school, school can not arrange a 3rd party deal. The conferences will be allowed to determine how this $20.5mil is paid out as it applies to each individual sport. The ACC, I suspect most all the major conferences will allow the individual schools in their conference decide what % they want to apply to each individual sport.
Understand, there is a difference between what this new rev sharing version of NIL is to the cost of fielding a program. This rev share money is for player income, the $20.5mil does not force baseball for example to go away, just means the baseball players will not receive nearly the amount of NIL the basketball players will. The cost of fielding a Lacross team for example would come from the remaining 77% on average of the remaining gross revenues.
The results they expect is these exploding NIL pols of money that have been allowing some schools to spend nearly $30mil on a single sport to buy the best talent and especially the 3rd party deals that schools are or have been offering as part of the over all compensation to brings a player in if not today will be gone shortly. From what I have read this 3rd party clearing house was to begin June 6, six days ago? I take it as any 3rd party deal consummated AFTER 6/6 will have to be clearing house approved. Meaning those huge deals players have been getting because so much of it was based on school arranged 3rd party deals may now be a thing of the past. Individual pay outs that individual players have been getting, like $4 mil for a single basketball or football player will have to work within that $20.5mil cap number so if you want to pay your starting QB 4.5 mil to play for you OK but you only have $16 mil left to spend on any other athlete in multiple sports. You are going to see conferences begin to top grade out schools that bring in lower revenue dollars, with a special focus on football because that is the sport that brings in the biggest dollars, which directly has effect when the media deals are re-struck. The in-balanced rev share pay out like the ACC now has is the beginnings of top grading out weaker less profitable programs.
That circles me back to duke and Kentucky, 2 programs well known to pay out HUGE sums every season to buy players, be it allowed by the NCAA or NOT. If they now follow the rules, their success in basketball may be drowned out by their lack of football success. When conferences really start looking hard at top grading football is going to drive the bus. You may have a great basketball program but with football bringing the large revenue they are going to have to shift their allocations of money to football and that means not just less but far less for basketball. While it seems every where I turn I see some one else doing a pod cast talking about our spending $14mil on basketball players this cycle I see little to no discussion of the well over $20mil programs like duke and Ky are spending just on basketball. Programs like that will have to spend a lot more on football to remain at least relevant in their conferences or risk being top graded out. Spend like those programs may have to leaves very little left to allow them to buy the best basketball players out there when the majority of the 3rd party deals will no longer be allowed (current estimates from Deloitte are that 70-80% of all 3rd party deals will not be allowed moving forward.because there is school involvement, booster involvement, or do not meet fair market value of the player worth as determined by the clearing house.
3rd party commercial deals separate and above rev sharing will be allowed but all 3rd party deals over $600 would have to pass thru a clearing house committee to insure they are not in any way given as conditional that a kid play for a specific school or have any involvement by the school, school can not arrange a 3rd party deal. The conferences will be allowed to determine how this $20.5mil is paid out as it applies to each individual sport. The ACC, I suspect most all the major conferences will allow the individual schools in their conference decide what % they want to apply to each individual sport.
Understand, there is a difference between what this new rev sharing version of NIL is to the cost of fielding a program. This rev share money is for player income, the $20.5mil does not force baseball for example to go away, just means the baseball players will not receive nearly the amount of NIL the basketball players will. The cost of fielding a Lacross team for example would come from the remaining 77% on average of the remaining gross revenues.
The results they expect is these exploding NIL pols of money that have been allowing some schools to spend nearly $30mil on a single sport to buy the best talent and especially the 3rd party deals that schools are or have been offering as part of the over all compensation to brings a player in if not today will be gone shortly. From what I have read this 3rd party clearing house was to begin June 6, six days ago? I take it as any 3rd party deal consummated AFTER 6/6 will have to be clearing house approved. Meaning those huge deals players have been getting because so much of it was based on school arranged 3rd party deals may now be a thing of the past. Individual pay outs that individual players have been getting, like $4 mil for a single basketball or football player will have to work within that $20.5mil cap number so if you want to pay your starting QB 4.5 mil to play for you OK but you only have $16 mil left to spend on any other athlete in multiple sports. You are going to see conferences begin to top grade out schools that bring in lower revenue dollars, with a special focus on football because that is the sport that brings in the biggest dollars, which directly has effect when the media deals are re-struck. The in-balanced rev share pay out like the ACC now has is the beginnings of top grading out weaker less profitable programs.
That circles me back to duke and Kentucky, 2 programs well known to pay out HUGE sums every season to buy players, be it allowed by the NCAA or NOT. If they now follow the rules, their success in basketball may be drowned out by their lack of football success. When conferences really start looking hard at top grading football is going to drive the bus. You may have a great basketball program but with football bringing the large revenue they are going to have to shift their allocations of money to football and that means not just less but far less for basketball. While it seems every where I turn I see some one else doing a pod cast talking about our spending $14mil on basketball players this cycle I see little to no discussion of the well over $20mil programs like duke and Ky are spending just on basketball. Programs like that will have to spend a lot more on football to remain at least relevant in their conferences or risk being top graded out. Spend like those programs may have to leaves very little left to allow them to buy the best basketball players out there when the majority of the 3rd party deals will no longer be allowed (current estimates from Deloitte are that 70-80% of all 3rd party deals will not be allowed moving forward.because there is school involvement, booster involvement, or do not meet fair market value of the player worth as determined by the clearing house.
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It is all so simple and clear now that I'm sure no one will cheat again.
IN order for cheating to go away you must have an enforcement body wiling to take harsh action against cheating. The NCAA has proven without any doubt that it has no appetite to equally and fairly enforce actions that are against guidelines. This is like having a speed limit of 45mph and never any cops around to enforce it, the speed limit sign is worthless, the NCAA is just as worthless in my opinion.
Best this can do is move the cheating back to the back rooms it lived in prior to NIL.
it's been my contention that the NCAA has neglected cheating between schools in order to focus on propping up the facade of amateurism, since that's what has allowed the schools to make bank...... while revelations of actual cheating for competitive purposes just blemishes the product they've been selling. So, sweep the cheating stuff under the rug while taking away a player's eligibility just for sleeping on an ex-player's sofa. If what's going on rids us of this sort of senseless duplicity, it can't be all bad.
It might take a truly independent oversight to keep things straight, in order to keep the schools from jimmying the system to their collective benefit through their subservient third party. OR create a system wherein it behooves individual schools to act independent of any collective good while sitting in judgement of offending members.
I think our institutions of higher education are rife with hypocrisy. I don't see that changing any time soon.
